Stories and comments from the author's musical and political life: by John F Goodman

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Tag Archives: Michael Grunwald

Of all the horrendous things humans do—e.g., the Mexican drug gang murders, ISIS beheadings, wars in South Sudan with 20 million dying from starvation—the continual poisoning of the climate in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence is the most calamitous.

Americans have not only been sold a bogus president; they voted in a Republican Congress now virtually captive to the fossil fuel industry. Very few Republican members will even admit aloud to the radical effects of a changing climate, much less endorse the science.

Just as our governing Republicans refuse (at least publicly) to recognize that their emperor has no clothes, they willingly put their heads in the sand regarding climate change. This did not happen overnight, and more recently it’s a story of corruption on a grand scale.

Jane Mayer wrote this week about how the nefarious Koch brothers have bought off most Republicans in Congress with massive campaign contributions while “killing the careers of politicians who broke with the brothers’ anti-climate-change agenda.”

President Trump may be the face of America’s withdrawal from the Paris climate accord, but, as deeper reporting is making clear, it’s the Kochs and their fellow fossil-fuel industry donors who really own the policy.

The authors tell a story of money, politics and influence that explains how a small group of dedicated megalomaniacs can take control of public policy with worldwide repercussions. Congressional Republicans have given over any pretense to world concerns, morality or science. Climate change may be ignored as long as they can stay in power. This is corruption on a new grand scale.

The questions really are: how long can Republicans keep denying reality (and the fact that over 60 percent of Americans are worried about the climate)? How long can the “tribal” response hold people in their camp? Will the Comey hearing move the needle on their unyielding support for Trump? Not bloody likely.

We seem in for a long haul of persistent Trump defenders and climate change deniers. Rank partisanship and a determined blindness still control voter attitudes on climate, as on many things. Michael Grunwald in Politico:

Climate change will affect the entire earth, from drought-ravaged farm villages in Africa to flood-prone condo towers in Miami, but for Trump it’s just a symbol of the stuff that people who don’t like Trump care about. Paris is just an Obama legacy that he can kill, when he doesn’t have the votes to kill Obama’s health reforms or Wall Street regulations or tax hikes on the wealthy. Whatever damage Trump’s climate policies cause to the planet will be collateral damage, shrapnel from his political war on elites and the left and Obama.